


Din'anshiral

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drabble, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 18:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7902862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He lives. He breathes his last. He wakes up.</p><p>The cycle repeats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Din'anshiral

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Variations on a Theme, with Tank and Gunfire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/505809) by [servantofclio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio). 



> I was reading a Mass Effect fanfic where Shep kept coming back to life, and I subsequently wondered if it would work in Dragon Age. And of course, Cullen is my favorite character, ergo, this fic was born.

It’s been a good life, Cullen muses, his aching joints and white hair whispering in the breeze as he watches his grandchildren play. He’s tired. He misses his wife, Sora. An infection in her lungs takes her in her sleep as her frail body languishes in the healer’s home.

He closes his eyes. The shrill laughter of children fades, the warmth of the sun on his thin aging skin turns cold, and the whisper of the birds and the breeze falls silent.

There is nothing.

And then: the clashing of armor plates, the dull murmur of a barracks, the sharp scent of lyrium in the air.

He opens his eyes.

He scrambles out of bed on joints that bend too easily and energy overflowing. A face he hasn’t seen in decades stares back, his untamed golden curls flopping wildly in an unruly halo. There’s no scars, no laugh lines. There’s no circles under his eyes, and there’s no evidence of the hard life he has lived.

Kinloch Hold rumbles with life around him as Templars and mages go about their duties. Men who had years ago fallen thrall to the siren song of the red lyrium nod at him as they make their way to their daily patrols and guard rotations.

Air catches in his throat, but long years spent travelling to Minrathous, to Halamshiral, and to Denerim for soirees and noble gatherings freeze his expression into a solemnity he could not be farther from.

“Maker’s breath,” he murmurs, the old expletive falling from his lips. He sits back down on his bed, thankful it’s the one shoved into the corner.

His eyes catch on a comrade’s calendar as he surveys a room he can barely recall, and he cringes- it’s the day of Uldred’s uprising.

* * *

 He laughs at the Demons, knowing full well the Hero is coming, but this time, it isn’t Mahariel. A dwarf stares at him from outside his cage, as he kneels, praying quietly.

Two weeks later, incautious, a blood mage slits his throat.

He wakes up again.

* * *

Sometimes the Hero is elven, sometimes human, and sometimes dwarven. Sometimes Hawke is a man, other times a woman.

He notes that if Bethany is around, Hawke is never a mage, and if Carver is around, then Hawke wields powerful magic as they climb through Kirkwall. Otherwise, there is no pattern he can discern.

The Inquisitor though, hurts him the most. It’s never his wife again. He’ll grow old if he’s lucky- although except for that first mishap, he always makes it past the Exalted Council held to shut down the Inquisition.

Sometimes he stays on lyrium, but he can never really remember those lives.

And once, he found himself with the glowing hand. He tries not to think about it.

* * *

He has lived 12 lives when he wakes and meets the future Queen as he reclines in the damned cage, now used to the demon's tricks. It doesn’t mean much to him, aside from amusement about how Wardens aren’t supposed to be involved with politics. He rages because they expect it, because this is a farce he has played a dozen times. 

He transfers to Kirkwall (he always does. Some cycles he let his anger get the best of him, and sometimes he wields mercy and kindness far more than his sword.

Katria Hawke bounds into his life, full of laughter as she swings the largest greatsword he’s ever seen (in all his lives), and on a whim, Cullen decides to befriend Hawke and her ragtag band. He spends his evening off drinking at the Hanged Man, and when he finally wins a round of Wicked grace against Varric, maybe he celebrates a bit too much.

Well- he can always blame it on the shitty ale. It’s not as if they’d believe him. But for a moment, when he lays down the winning hand, he sees another ragtag group of people who are giving their all and fumbling through the world, and his heart seizes and shatters. He misses them, and a shudder runs through his body, but he masks it with a swig of the swill left in his tankard, and grins at Katria.

Some things never change, though. The expedition always goes badly, the Qunari always attack, Hawke is always too late to save her mother, and Meredith is always mad.

But this time, they are friends, not enemies, not cautious acquaintances, and not skeptical allies. So when he is visiting the Hawke mansion, talking with Leandra about Carver’s templar training, and white lilies arrive, he tells Leandra to remain behind (she doesn't listen to the frantic Templar, why would she, she doesn't know him all that well) leaves immediately to grab Hawke and run to the docks, trying to catch the mage in his own hide out.

Heavy oaken doors shatter under his armored boots, seeking the trapdoor he keeps hearing about in solemn reports that have crossed his desk.

Hawke follows in the twisting warrens, Isabela hiding the shadows behind the two Warriors. He sees Leandra struggling against the sinister hold of blood magic, and a massive Smite staggers Quentin.

But it wasn’t his. He Cleanses the area, removing Leandra from Quentin’s thrall, and as Hawke tears through the summoned demons, heading straight for the unfortunate blood mage, he can see the whispers of Templar training turned to bellows of truth.

Leandra hides behind him as Cullen slashes through the demons that come close, a silverite bulwark against the wraiths. A desire demon claws at his armor, her image blurring and shifting into Sora, and he staggers.

13 times he has been tortured within an inch of his lie in Kinloch Hold- always by Desire Demons.

Sora’s head goes flying as the other Templar appears behind the demon, then, and he shouts as her body turns to ash.

Grief bubbles up, and he chokes on the weight of it. He misses her dearly, and 12 lives without her have only dulled the shards of grief he feels every day. And to see her, if only for a few moments, and then watch her die? It is agony.

Sympathy crosses Hawke’s eyes, and she holds out a hand. He had not even realized he had fallen to his knees. She helps haul him off the ground, and he sighs, shaking off the cobwebs of the past.

* * *

He meets with Hawke that evening. Varric’s there as well. He tells the two everything, up to a point. There's shouting, and tears and anger, but absolution as well.

He won’t tell them about anything that has yet to happen. There is no way to prevent the massacre at the Gallows. He can only lessen the damage.

They ask, of course, but the pain on his face, the tension in his shoulders, and the golden eyes that stare into something only Cullen can see-- these things answer for him.

* * *

He stands in front of Meredith, sword raised, and Hawke strides forward to stand at his side. “Is it always like this?”

“Always,” he confirms, and the battle commences. Statues rise, and then fall as he and the warriors smash into the legs, tipping them over, and hacking off the limbs. At one point, he and Hawke are back to back, and she laughs as she listens to him complain under his breath about how annoying this fight has always been.

He orders everyone back as Meredith begins to glow, and if anyone wonders why the Champion is so quick to listen to him, no one says anything.

Minutes, hours, seconds later (he can't tell anymore, not with adrenaline and lyrium  and battle burning so brightly in his veins), he clasps Hawke's shoulder. "Go," his voice rumbles, "They will send an Exalted March. I will remain."

* * *

He stands under the Breach once more, hacking away at demons, when the rift explodes with energy, stunning each of the Fade’s malevolent denizens. Each time this has happened, the Herald had killed the demons and then closed the rift, usually figuring out how to stun them in the Hinterlands.

His sword screams through the air as he sends another wraith back to the Fade, and he hears the telltale crescendo and then the earth shattering boom as the rift snaps closed.

He wipes his sword on his breaches, and turns to see who the Herald is this time, and stops in his tracks at the silhouette approaching him.

And then mentally shakes himself. The hair is the same, but it’s not her. She stands behind Cassandra, eyes clouded. But she reaches up and twirls a lock of hair in her hand, and pushes it behind her right ear when she catches him watching.

One of Sora’s old habits. He shrugs it off. Coincidence.

* * *

He’s in the war room when Adan gives his report to Leliana. The Fallow Mire returns his glare as he puzzles over how he can avoid having his soldiers captured by Avvar. It keeps happening, and honestly, it’s bothering him. There's no casualties; just irritation.

So deep in his own thoughts, he misses Adan’s final comment, “Well, she’s got an old Ferelden coin for a necklace. An old one, too. They don’t make them like that anymore. Didn’t mess with it, but just thought it was odd for a Free Marcher noble.”

* * *

Cassandra strides into the War Room, the Herald close behind. Titles are exchanged, and finally, he get’s the Herald’s name: Rosalin. She hesitates, and something flashes across her eyes, and her hand plays with the amulet at her neck.

“You can call me Sora, though. It’s the name I prefer.”

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down and scrawled this out. No beta. Probably should have had one. Criticism is welcomed!
> 
> Feel free to hit me up on tumblr! aint-summer-here.tumblr.com
> 
> I love it when people talk to me. :)


End file.
